A driver was left shocked after spotting what appeared to be a dead puma on the side of a busy road.
Courtney Roberts, 21, was driving along the A483 near Chester when she saw the animal lying in the central reservation.
She shared her footage with experts, who believe it could be the body of a puma, also known as a mountain lion or cougar.
Pumas are native to the Americas, but have been spotted in the wild in Britain since the 1960s and 1970s, when they were popular as pets.
Courtney, from Wrexham, said: “You see so many strange-looking animals on the side of the road over here.
“I had to put my phone on record and point it down to the road, unfortunately it isn’t as clear as I’d like it to be.
“Looking at that picture it does look like a bobcat.
“My partner was just looking and he saw a Scottish wildcat on Google and I think it looks like one of them but …. in person you can see a spotted pattern on its coat.”
She posted the photos on a Facebook group for lost pets, where it was seen by a group of big cat researchers who are now investigating.
Due to the interest in the mystery animal, Courtney returned to the location with her partner to try to identify it or recover its body. But when she checked again an hour later, the creature was gone.
She said: “I’ve just gone on to the bypass with my partner and pulled over, and we stopped exactly where I saw the animal, and now there is no animal there. So I think someone has seen my post and gone to take it.
“There’s no animal there. I’ve literally gone up and down again in my car with my full beams on, but I can’t see any animal there now.
“So I don’t know what’s happened in the past hour, but I think someone’s seen my post and they’ve taken the animal.”
A new documentary that’s all about Britain’s secret big cats called ‘Panthera Britannia Declassified’ has become a hit on Amazon, and it says for sure that big cats are out there in the wild in Britain.
Tim Whittard, who made the show, said: “This wouldn’t be the first time the body of a big cat has been seen road-killed in Britain.
“This is the fourth report I’m aware of in less than three months, and there are several high-profile cases of similar incidents.”
Jason Kenzie, a wildlife expert from Canada who knows a lot about wild cats, thinks the animal was probably a young puma.
He said: “It looks feline, but I believe it’s too large to be a Scottish wildcat.
“It could be a Bobcat or Lynx, but really this has the markings of a young cougar.”
Tim Whittard agreed that it might be a puma.
He said: “Honestly, as daft as it might sound, I really do think you’d be far less likely to see a Scottish wildcat in this location than a puma.”
